


Equal

by LaterTuesday



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Historical, Complete, Gen, No Dean or Sam in this one, Samuel Colt - Freeform, Supernatural - Freeform, The Colt (Supernatural), Western, longish fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaterTuesday/pseuds/LaterTuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Back in 1835, when Halley's Comet was overhead, same night those men died at the Alamo, they say Samuel Colt made a gun. A special gun. He made it for a hunter. A man like us, only on horseback. Story goes, he made thirteen bullets. This hunter used the gun a half dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him... Somehow Daniel got his hands on it. They say... they say this gun can kill anything."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta-ed. I've spell checked it to death, but you may see some typos/grammatical errors that snuck past me.
> 
> This entire fic was started in season 4-5 of Supernatural, and then the episode Frontier land came along and jossed the everloving hell out of the whole thing and I put this fic away, thinking that was the end of it. However this fic just won't stop bird dogging me, so I put some spit and polish on it, and here you go.
> 
> This story is out of chronological order, so hopefully it still makes sense.
> 
> Some historically accurate racial terms are used, but I tried to keep it to a minimum.
> 
> I researched the balls out of life as a cowboy, a ship hand, the real Samuel Colt, etc. and tried to make it as accurate as possible. No disrespect is intended to the Colt family.
> 
> There's some blink and you'll miss it violence, minor OMC deaths, and an appalling amount of Bechdel Test failure. I'm sorry.

## God didn't make men equal. Sam Colt did.  
-frontier saying  


  
  
“Samuel Colt died” I told Mashek as I dragged the cedar branch through the dirt around our campsite.  
  
“Oh” he said laying out the parts of his disassembled gun on the cloth before him. It didn’t take no great thinker to see he didn’t know who that was.  
  
“Heard ‘bout it in the last town we passed through” I said as I closed the circle around us, the horses and the fire. I didn’t mention how the news had been bird dogging my mind, how I’d dreamed of crows every night since.  
  
“Uh huh” Mashek murmured as he checked the barrel, and continued cleaning his weapon, paying me no mind.  
  
“Samuel Colt’s the reason you got that gun there, boy”  
  
“Naw, that idiot didn’t know how to play cards’ the reason I got this gun.”  
  
I sighed. Goddamn kids. I shook out my bedroll and kicked away the rocks from the area right in front of me. As much as the rocks and twigs might disturb my sleep I suspected the 50 plus years on my bones meant no ground was gonna be soft enough.  
  
“Samuel Colt’s the fellow invented a gun that could shoot more ‘en 2 rounds. Before him you killed something with the first shot or you died.”  
  
“Wow” Mashek said “That’s the most jawing I ever heard you do.”  
  
I glared at him but nothing came of it. You spend your whole life looking mean then when it counts no one can tell the difference.  
  
The kid shot me a glance and a half smile to let me know he was just foolin’.  
  
I shook my head and went back to arranging my bedding. I settled in and watched the firelight dancing on rocks and casting shadows. In the distance a coyote cried out and was answered, and overhead the stars went on forever. It was a wonderful time to be alive, and I knew it in the way only a man on his last legs could.  
  
“You know in my day we knew to respect our elders” I told him, although there was no anger in my voice. I, in my old age, forgot to mention that the old men of my day had said the exact same thing to us.  
  
“I don’t see the big deal is all”  
  
“He was a good man” I told him, which wasn’t even the half of it.  
  
“You knew him?” he asked me.  
  
I nodded and lapsed into silence thinking. Mashek waited. He was used to my quiet stretches.  
  
“I met him in the Orient. We was both sailors then. I was young, younger than you are now, I had signed up on a ship. I wanted to see the world, make my fortune, all that stupid shit that young people thinks matters.”

 ***  


The bar was dim and smoky and even in the gloom the dirt was visible. Sailors and locals were passed out, strung out and draped over the painted ladies. There were cheap wooden tables and chairs strewn about with the occasional lit candle in a dirty glass that caught the opium cloud hovering over the room. I stumbled between the furniture to collapse at the bar and flagged down the barkeep.  
  
“You look three sheets to the wind.”  
  
I gave a cheeky grin to the stranger on the stool beside me. “Three sheets will come later my friend, after I sober up some.”  
  
The guy raised his glass in a mock toast to my debauchery.  
  
“You sound American” he said after I’d gotten my glass of rotgut from the man behind the counter. I threw it back in a gulp, and had my glass refilled. Then the barkeep went off to serve someone else.  
  
“That I am. You?” I answered and asked.  
  
“From Connecticut”  
  
I nodded “South Dakota”  
  
“It’s nice to see someone from home”  
  
“How long you been sailing?” I asked him.  
  
“Just over half a year”  
  
“You don’t seem the type to seek out a life at sea”  
  
He looked a bit uncomfortable at that. “I didn’t. My pa’s new wife took a powerful dislike to me and then I got sent”  
  
“Sorry to hear about your troubles. “  
  
He shrugged. “How’d you end up here? Family ship you off?”  
  
“I don’t have any family to speak of, not since my Ma died.”  
  
At this he looked very disturbed. No one liked it when I said it, which is probably why I delighted in it so. Of course this was one of the first people even close to my age who spoke the same language I’d met since I’d shipped out (the Brits didn’t count). “Don’t worry about it, friend, you can buy the next round and we’ll think of something more fun to talk on”.  
  
He smiled and flagged the barman “My names Samuel Colt” and he offered me his hand.  
  
When I woke up later the first thing I saw was a crude carving of a naked woman that some artist had slashed into the table I’d spent the night face down on. The man I’d been talking to the night before was passed out on the other side of the table, one arm draped over his face, as though to block out the morning light. I seriously doubted this place had seen natural light in a long time.  
  
The smell of the opium and sick and filth that had been easy to ignore last night was making it very hard to keep my stomach settled. The pounding of the ocean nearby was so loud I thought my head might crack open.  
  
“Hey!” I uttered. I got no response from my new friend, but several other patrons who’d spent the night grumbled unpleasant things in my direction. “Hey!” I said quieter but with a back hand slap at partner. This time I was rewarded with fewer death threats from everyone else in the bar and Sam opened his eyes a crack.  
  
Eventually he woke and we stumbled our way into the bright sunlight and the fresh salt air breeze, and the gulls screeching. It was not unlike walking into the open mouth of hell.  
  
“I think I’m dying” Sam muttered.  
  
“Don’t be such a croaker” I told him “It’s not so bad” In truth I felt almost as dragged out as he looked. “Come on Sam, we’re both needed back on our ships”  
  
For a moment I swear he turned green. “I’m not getting on any ship.”  
  
“Yeah, right” I looked over at him but he looked dead serious.  
  
“You gonna take French leave then? Set up with some Oriental with her feet chopped off? Have you lost your senses?”  
  
“I can’t go back out there”  
  
“Yeah, well, you can’t jump ship neither. You know what they do to deserters. ‘Sides you’ll feel better in a couple of hours.”  
  
“It’s not ‘cause I think I’m going to be sick. You ain’t seen the things I did. There’s monsters out there. One of them near destroyed my ship! We lost three men”. He was near tears by the end of speaking. “It’s why I was out drinking last night. I needed to forget.”  
  
I snorted. “You haven’t a clue what I’ve seen, Sam. And there’s no such thing as a safe place, not sea, nor land, nor homestead.”  
  
He looked at me then, really looked at me. “You’ve seen things too?”  
  
I looked up at the sky and sighed. “There’s a lot of stuff out there Sam. And I think I’ve only seen a small bit of it.”  
  
“Well what are we to do about it? How do you stop them from taking you?”

  
“Luck?” I said. “Some say faith keeps those types of things at bay, but I never cottoned on to that idea.”  
  
“So we’re helpless?”  
  
I shrugged. “You fight against them because you haven’t a choice, Sam. Otherwise you’re just prey.”  
  
He didn’t seem particularly comforted by what I’d said, but there was truly no comfort to be had on the subject. Monsters were real, and there wasn’t a thing any of us could do about it-at least then.  
  
“Why doesn’t anyone say anything, warn others?”  
  
“’Cause it’s only us that seen it that can talk about it and only with each other. Anyone else’d think we were mad.”  
  
“Are you going to be in port tonight?” he asked me. We’d come to the Corvo, his ship, and the captain was sure to come see why his youngest member was dawdling when there was bound to be hard labour to be done.  
  
“We ship out in a day or two, but I should be here for tonight. Up for more of the Oh-be-joyful?” I asked him.  
  
He got that green look again. “I don’t think the drink agrees with me”.  
  
“It took me awhile to get used to it to, now it’s like mothers milk.”  
  
He gave me a skeptical look. “You don’t look older than me, never mind enough to be talking like that.”  
  
I puffed out my chest. “I’m 15, be 16 next month” I told him. He snorted, and I felt myself deflate.  
  
“I’m already 16.”  
  
I grunted. “Well, I ought to be getting to my ship ‘fore my captain gets his back up.”  
  
“You’ll meet me back at the bar?” he asked.  
  
I nodded, and set off at a brisk pace. Today was going to be a very long day and I still felt sick as a dog. Once on board I grabbed some hard tack for breakfast and started helping to unload the crates from our hold.  
  
The sun was a particularly unforgiving bastard that day and burned me something terrible.  
  
After the sunset I made my way along the greyed wooden walkway to the bar and found Samuel already there, although he only had a weak beer in front of him.  
  
“Hey” I said. He looked up and smiled, tiredly. “I thought you’d sworn off the drink.”  
  
His smile turned a little rueful. “Thought it might help with my aches and pains. I spent the day doing the bright wood work.”  
  
I grimaced in sympathy. My first month on a ship my captain had made all the new tars scrub the topside of the ship till it looked brand new again. My back hadn’t unknotted a fortnight.  
  
I flagged the barkeep and got a beer of my own.  
  
“How’d you find out about it?”

“Huh?” I asked, halfway to taking a sip and not really following.  
  
“About...you know, the stuff that...”  
  
“Monsters and such?” I said quietly and took a mouthful of my drink. He nodded.

“The town I come from is called Cold Oak.” I stopped to see if he’d heard the stories.  
  
“Sounds pleasant enough.” Apparently not.  
  
“It isn’t. It’s cursed. Hauntings and people disappearing with no trace of them to be seen again, even the ground stopped bearing.” I took another chug. “A week before I left it rained blood, and it wasn’t the first time that’d happened”  
  
Sam looked horrified and disgusted. I shrugged off his look and drank some more.


	2. Chapter 2

## Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the brave. -Helen Keller

I woke up coughing, hard enough to hurt. And I’d been right about the ground not being soft enough for my old bones. Thankful the young buck I’d tied to had sense enough to have the coffee already brewing. The smell eased some of my discomfort.

“You all right? That cough don’t sound good.”

“I don’t need you to dote on me like I’m a sick child. Now get me a cup of coffee.”

Mashek smiled at my ill humour and poured me a cup. “We’re not far from Cairo. We should make it before sunset.”

I nodded and took my cup from him. He prattled on about the different things he thought might be the cause of the deaths we’d heard about, but none of the monsters he listed sounded like anything we might have to face. I let him go on and enjoyed the bitterness of my drink and the chill leaving me as I faced our fire. I was not looking forward to being that close to civilization, it never sat right with me.

Mashek and I broke camp and started off eastward to the city where a rash of murders had been attributed to wild animals, but were of a kind to make people talk ‘bout it in hushed whispers. That’s how our kind found most of jobs: frightened whispers.

***

I'd stayed on the docks the afternoon I left my ship, looking for one that'd let me sign on in exchange for passage to America, but there were none taking on crew, nor heading where I was.

One of the sailors told me he had heard of a vessel heading to the States due in a few days. I thanked him and made my way up Water Street. It was narrow; barely room enough for two carriages to pass one another, with tall buildings looming up and almost over the street itself. A few spewed smoke into the sky.

Women in rags called out to passersby about the quality of their fish and other sea food. A few were selling other provisions: clothes and equipment. Children, too young to work, stumbled about with a glassy eyed look, I saw one mother feeding her child more of the soothing syrup she kept in her skirt and the child all but collapsed against her.

I side stepped the mess left behind by someone’s horse and I walked into the dim lit public house and headed for the bar. I asked the barman if he had any rooms for the night and got my key, and a lighter purse. I only had enough money on hand to stay a few nights. A ship had better arrive early or I would be at the mercy of those that bought items of intrigue in a land I did not understand. I knew I wouldn't get a fair shake if I had to sell here. I kept my eyes forward, but taking in all the people around me.

I wrinkled my nose. Ships are no perfumed fantasy, but it’s a smell you can get used to, if for no other reason than the sea air washes everything clean eventually. This was the smell of a great many bodies in a tight place that had not seen soap nor water in a long while. The smoke from chimneys and factories coated the back of my throat. This whole place felt dirty.

Over the noise of conversations came the occasional shrill and forced sounding laughter from the women working there.

I pushed my way through the crowd and bumped into someone harder than either of us were expecting, sending us both back a bit.

"Hey watch it-" he stopped as he recognized me.

"Sam?" I asked him "What the hell are you doing in Liverpool?" I bit my lip to keep from asking him what had brought him to this state. Although he'd grown up and out he'd taken on the appearance of years beyond himself in our time apart.

"I'm learning everything I can, and this is where it's brought me" he answered. He slurred his words and stumbled a bit, though whether from drink, or exhaustion, or hunger I could not tell.

"Are you staying here?" I asked him.

He shook his head "They kick me out at night".

It near broke my heart to see him like this, and as it had been since the day we met I felt like the older brother, despite him having a year on me.

"Come on" I wrapped an arm around him for support, although to anyone looking we seemed only two friends reunited after long absence "You can bunk in my room."

We stumbled up the narrow staircase and as soon as I'd opened the door he all but collapsed on the bed, face down and did not stir again.

I managed to remove his boots, although the smell made the bar below seem far better by comparison and I worked the blankets over him.

The room was very small, and the bed far too narrow for two. I took the top blanket from the bed and laid it alongside it. I hoped Sam didn't decide to try for the commode in the middle of the night. I'd taken what floor space was offered.

Before turning in I went back to the din below and ordered up some bread and cheese, and a glass of beer. I took it back to my room and ate half, wrapping the other in a handkerchief in case Sam was up for eating tomorrow. There was no room to store the plate so I put it under the bed and hoped the rats found better food than what was in my room.

***

“You still above snakes, Sammy?”

“Don’t call me Sammy” he muttered “Only my Ma gets to call me that and that witch killed her” he tried to bury his face deeper into the pillow.

I placed the cup of coffee up near his head and waited till the smell drew his head back up out of the grave it had dug for itself.

“What are you going on about, Sam?” I asked him once he’d reached for the coffee and I’d sat on the bed beside him. “You sure you ain’t still dreaming?”

He shook his head and went back to looking miserable and sipping from his cup. His hair was so unkempt and long it near fell in the drink.

I waited on him to collect himself.

“I got a letter from my brother, once I arrived from the East, telling me of the death of my sister.” He drank the last of the coffee like it was something a lot stronger and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “John told me she’d died from the same illness that had claimed my mother. But I’d already come to the conclusion that it weren’t disease that killed my Ma, not after you and I had our talk. There was something unnatural about it. I knew it even when I was just a boy.” He sniffed and tried not to cry. I took great interest in the fabric of the blanket until he started talking again. “I wrote him back explaining the best I could that something else was responsible.”

He stopped talking, and the silence grew so long I wondered if he’d fallen asleep sitting up, hunched over his empty cup.

“Sam?” I put a hand on his shoulder.

He started and looked up and over at me, almost surprised that I was still here, or not a part of his imagination.

“He already knew.”

This was said low, like Sam didn’t believe it himself.

“He knew and he wasn’t ever going to tell me. It’s only ‘cause I tried to tell him that he admitted it.” He slammed the cup down on the floor in front of us so hard it fell and rolled a bit before the handle stopped it.

“Don’t take on so, Sam. I’m sure he meant well”

He shook his head back and forth with considerable force. “He knew before she died. He saw that my Pa’s new wife was something wrong back when she first came to our home and he didn’t tell me.”

“What was she?”

He lifted his hands and dropped them back down. “John didn’t know. All he wrote me was that he’d seen her step out of her skin and leave it on the floor like it was clothes. He said she was all red like her skin was one big wound, but she walked around looking like that. She saw him and fled. He tried to tell my Pa, but she returned looking normal and demanded my Pa throw John out, on account of the lies he was telling, and because John was old enough to not be costing his family money.”

Sam put his hands to his face and rubbed it like he was trying to rub the memory of his brother’s words out of mind.

“This all happened right before she made my Pa send me away. Before my sister died. He knew and he didn’t tell me.”

I rubbed his shoulder a bit, in silence. Really, what could I say to that?

After a spell I stood and grabbed the tin plate I’d stored under the bed. I offered him the bread and cheese from last night. He grabbed both and started to chew.

“What have you been doing since I saw you last?” He asked me between bites.

“I spent some time in the Orient, and India. Made my way to Egypt, picked up a few oddities.”

“I’ve heard a lot about Egypt of late. Say the people who built all that stuff knew more about magic than anyone.”

“They knew something.” I agreed. “There’s some curses there that’ll kill everyone in the expedition that stumbles onto it. I happened to find one group-” I pulled a face. I didn’t see the point in spoiling his meal by describing the poor bastards.

The look on my face seemed enough to discourage him from inquiring further. He continued to gulp down the food like it was his first meal in a while.

***


	3. Chapter 3

## Four out of five monsters surveyed prefer unarmed ignorant peasants.

– unknown

****

Mashek was right, that or we just made good time. We rode into Cairo, IL midafternoon. This was the farthest East I’d been since I’d last seen Sammy.

It was a busy town, built on a slope down to the river that ran along the eastern side of the town.

We headed for the saloon. It was the best place for information, and to see about getting a room. I could feel how tired my horse was by the way she dragged her feet. I silently promised the old girl I’d give her a good brush before settling in that night.

As we passed town folk on the street conversations faltered. It was a reaction I was used to. Ever since the war strangers were regarded with a suspicion.

And any town that had seen a half dozen “wild animal” attacks, like Cairo had was bound to be doubly suspicious of people they didn’t know.

I pointedly refused to see the extra looks Mashek’s deeply tanned skin colour was getting. I’d gotten into far too many fights with idjits thinking he was property, and my failing health wouldn’t let me win one now. I snorted. In my youth I’d have never backed down from a fight no matter my state. I really was getting old.

Damn it where had the time gone?

At the saloon I did my damned-est not to appear too interested. I’d made that mistake once or twice in my earlier years, and been run out of town for my trouble. Damn fools thought I was responsible for the attacks I’d come there to stop.

***

“You always do that.”

“What?”

“Wrinkle up your face like you smelt something foul any time we go inside.”

I smiled “I weren’t made for indoors and cities, Sam, I’m meant for the open land. It’s what I was born to, and I can’t imagine ever being cooped up in walls and people for any real length of time.”

Sam grinned at me.

It was nice to see him smile.

                                                                        ***

 

It looked like a woman.

At least, she had a human head with sleek dark hair tied into an ornate bun atop her head. She was beautiful, a part of me noticed. But beneath her head and breasts was the body of a lioness. She was pale, but it warmed into golden fur, and she paced back and forth twitching her tail. The light caught her eyes and they seemed to glow. From deep in her throat she let slip a growl. She slipped back and forth on large paws, moving in between crates and boxes. She seemed more irritated than fearful, which did not bode well for me and Mashek, nor the men who’d insisted on coming with us.

One of the men lifted a lantern up high to get a better view. In the greater light I could see the remains behind her. They looked human, although it was hard to tell from what was left. Bones jutted out of raw meat, and appeared to have been chewed on. One bone, in particular, caught my eye. She had sucked out the marrow, much like a dog would when given a bone to gnaw upon.

She growled again and the man who’d lifted the lantern jerked back, casting her back into half shadow.

“There are two sisters" she said in a voice that sound like gravel grinding against itself, "one gives birth to the other, and she in turn gives birth to the first.”

I raised my hand quickly, trying to remind the men with us not to speak, but of course one had to go on and open his mouth.

“What-“

I looked at him directly, it was the one with the cute sister. Ezra. I tried to catch his eye, and shush him without making any noise.

She repeated herself “There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other, and she in turn gives birth to the first” She stopped pacing and looked directly at Ezra. He cocked her head and stared at him with her glowing eyes

***

“This is important. There are only 2 things that’ll kill an Androsphinx. One’s getting her to answer a question or riddle of your own, and the others to answer her question correctly. If you guess right she can not harm you. If you attack after that she’s good as dead.”

“What happens if you don’t know the answer to her question?” one of the younger men asked. He was the brother of the cute shopgirl, Dot, that had volunteered the back of the store for this meeting. She reminded me of Miranda, a thought I immediately banished from my mind.

“What’s your name boy?” I asked him.

“Ezra” he said and stood up straighter under my scrutiny.

“If you don’t know the answer you damn well better not say a word, Ezra. You guess wrong and she’ll rip you to pieces.”

He looked a little off at that, half scared, and half thinking I was trying to put one over on him. I continued to look him dead in the eye and he realized I was for real.

I looked at all the men assembled there “Don’t say a single word. She’ll take it as you agreeing to her challenge.”

“What if we shoot her?” another man asked.

“There’s an old saying where I’m from” Mashek said, as he took a step forward, hands on his belt. I resisted the urge to smile at him putting on airs. “Don’t wound what you can’t kill. If you shoot you might buy yourself some time, maybe hurt it a little, but you’re gonna make it mighty angry too. Bullets are a last resort.”

From the doorway, Dot, no longer pretending to sweep, looked at Mashek with obvious admiration, and a little something else. I wondered when he’d settle down.

 ***

It took longer than I’d like for a ship to come in that would let me sign on. I was forced to sell smaller treasures to pay for my room, and food for two. I tried to convince Sam to come with me, but he was hell bent on staying. He insisted there was more for him to learn there.

I didn’t like to leave him, although the weeks in my company had improved him greatly. He’d put on weight and lost the sallowness of his skin.

He still couldn’t grow a beard, and I teased him greatly about the patches of hair on his face. My own facial growth was much more akin to a real man’s beard and I never let him forget it.

When I left I worried I would never see him again, but I couldn’t stand to stay in a city any longer. It got so I could barely breathe.

Still, I spent the trip home with half a mind on Sam and his wellbeing.

***

Ezra’s mistake cost him.

The Androsphinx lashed out with her clawed arms and tore gashes into his leg. Blood welled up instantly and he fell, clutching at the wound and yelling.

Several of the posse we’d rounded up made to go to him.

“No one move!” Mashek and I yelled in unison. Only some of the fools listened. Another idiot found his arm in her jaws, and the sickening crunch of bone told us she’d made short work of it.

The lanterns that the men we’d brought had been holding were thrown to the ground as their holders scrambled out of harm’s way. It was chaos, and the blood on the floor caused many to trip. Men shouted and screamed in the darkness, and the Androsphinx, to my horror, purred in the dark, like small stones dropped onto a road by the handful. She was clearly content with how her prey was panicking.

With a snarl, and nails scrapping the floor she flung her self onto the back of one of the fallen, fleeing men, her jaws clamping down on the back of his neck.

I pulled out Sam’s gun and I laid her to rest with a crack of a gunshot that seemed to occupy the whole room.

I should have been able to keep that situation from going as it did.

Two men dead and Ezra losing the leg to infection.

That was the last bullet of the thirteen I ever used and it felt like a damn waste.


	4. Chapter 4

## There is nothing that can not be produced by machinery

## – Samuel Colt

 

There was a woman.

Lord how old age has made me sentimental. I had not thought of her in many a years. She was a school teacher. She had her share of suitors, but Miranda was dedicated, not to her job, but to freedom.

She confessed to me one night when I had the privilege of her company that a life as some rancher or shop keepers wife seemed too terrible a fate for her to endure. She wished that she had born a man, to be able to pick up and travel as it suited her, beholden to no one, and with no danger to herself for doing so.

I didn’t tell her about the dangers that even men must face. Her dream was pure and I would not be the one to tarnish it with life.

I admit I stayed in her town far longer than I could justify.

I’d scoured the countryside for threats, and dealt with them. That was near two months ago. And I still stayed here, for her.

It was while I was with Miranda I heard that Sam Colt had set up a factory. He was making guns, only his guns were different. He’d managed the impossible, a gun that did not require an immediate reload.

I sent off a letter, hoping he would respond and let me know how he was faring.

It was only a month or so before I received a telegram in reply.

_Please come to Hartford, CT. Stop. Must speak With You. Stop. Tide is turning in our favour. Stop._

I took a whole week before I left. I had nothing keeping me there except her, but I couldn’t bear to cleave myself from her.

We picnicked in a meadow. I had my head in her lap while she stroked my hair. And that’s when I told her my oldest friend had sent word that he needed me. I promised Miranda I would return, but I think we both knew I was telling her tall tales.

We spent as much time together as we could, but it was bitter sweet, like the last harvest before the first snow fall.

I never found another woman like her.

 

***

 

The horses had as much as they could carry, enough at least to last us until we hit the next town.

While Mashek was making sure everything was tied down secure for our journey. I stood with the telegraph operator and asked after Samuel Colt, tried to gleam some information beyond the news of his death.

“Oh yeah, real said story, that is.”

“Oh?” I asked him. He was clearly pleased to have a captive audience, and as much as the scuttlebutt was bound to be exaggeration it was the best I was gonna do, short of riding all the way out to Hartford to hear about it first hand.

“Yeah. Samuel Colt was quite the businessman. Made a real name for his self inventing the revolver and treated his workers well. By all accounts he was an aces high of kind of fella. But his family life.” The Operator shook his head in what was surely meant to be empathy at another’s fate, but was quite clearly poorly concealed excitement. “He married old, almost 50. But his wife was young, no reason he couldn’t have had a big family with her. But she lost a baby, and the one born after didn’t last a year.” He leaned in close to whisper loudly “I heard he locked himself in his room and refused to come out a month after the death of his baby girl. Real tragedy.”

He straightened up and said in a normal voice “Heard he was cursed, actually. That the souls of all the people killed by his guns wouldn’t let that poor man have rest.” He looked around to make sure his superstitious nature hadn’t been overheard “Not that I believe in that sort of nonsense, of course”

“Uh huh” I muttered. I watched to see if he had more to tell me, but he seemed to have shared all the information he had. “So what exactly killed him?” I asked.

“Heard it was pneumonia, although truthfully he just never got over the death of that child. Don’t think he fought as hard as he could have, just sort of drifted away, you know how some people go sometimes, when the fights gone out of them.” He looked at me over his nose in a manner as to suggest everyone knew how some people just drifted away.

I thanked him and walked away.

 

***

The last time I saw Sam he had finally settled down. I was passing through on a hunt, just a few months before I took on Mashek as my partner. He’d married the summer before last and his wife was in the family way. His factory was doing well. He’d made a name and a fortune for himself arming the Union and the Texans in their wars. He’d done a lot to arm the hunters like me, but I doubt he had made much profit or reputation for his trouble in that regard.

His house was large, and beautiful and a part of me envied him his success and the peace he’d found. He had been glowing as he explained the workings of his business and his factory. He took great pride in his manor, the Armsmear, I think he called it. The grounds were sweeping and bountiful, with a garden, and a pond.

I know many young women might see an older man with a fine house and think to trick him into marriage, but Sam and Elizabeth seemed to truly care for each other like few other couples I’d met. He spent much of my visit with his hand on the small of her back, or brushing against the swell of her belly. He never stopped smiling. She was just as happy.

I’m sure she wondered what business her fine upstanding husband might have with a dusty old man like me (Sam no longer looked the older of us, long days in the sun, and facing the things in the dark had seen to it), but she smiled and left us when he asked it of her.

We walked through his house, and he nodded to the servants when we past them on our way to his office.

Once inside he went to his desk and offered me a cigar, but I refused him. I’d caught a cough that wouldn’t quit and anything I could do to ease that was welcome-even if it meant passing up one of life’s finer pleasures.

“You’re happy.”

He smiled and struck a match. “I am.” He put the match to his cigar and inhaled deeply to get it started. “It’s the start of a new age, my friend. Country is strong, and so are we.”

I knew he meant humans with his last comment.

“The monsters are finally on the run. And it’s not just my guns that are doing it. It’s not even men like you. It’s science.”

I arched an eyebrow. Sam sat in his leather chair and leaned back, puffing his cigar with contentment. He nodded at the chair on the opposite side of his desk and I sat down, lifting my duster up a little so I could straighten in the chair without being yanked back.

“It wasn’t just the magic that made the gun I gave you something special. Don’t get me wrong” he waved the hand holding the cigar “magic had its place in its creation, but it was the science, the logic of the human mind. That’s what’s pushing back the darkness. It’s thought and knowledge. Some might call it faith, but there’s more to it than God or the Church. What we believe is changing the world we live in, and fewer folk believe in monsters. We’re pushing them back into shadows because we believe we can.”

“Why aren’t all your guns able to kill monsters than?” I asked him.

He shrugged “Magic had it’s place in the creation of that gun. The timing was a once in a lifetime occurrence, maybe more like once in many life times, maybe all life times.” He sighed, but it seemed to me more a thinking man’s sigh, then a depressed or lost one. “It was the first in a long line of guns, of weaponry that has given mankind the edge over everything else.”

He stubbed out the butt of his cigar in the ashtray on his desk and looked at me.

“The gun has power because we think it does. Because every person that picks up a Colt rifle or revolver knows what it can do, knows that a bullet can end a life. Even the monsters know it, and they’re afraid. We did that.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t do anything, Sam. I’m just a hunter, making my small part of the world safe for humanity.”

“You and every other hunter. You’re carving out parts of the world that the monster can’t get into.” He stood up and put his hands on the desk, leaning towards me “Belief shapes the world, and people believe they have a chance now, so they do.”

I stood as well. “If you say so, Sam, it’s a bit over the head of an old man like me. Still plenty of monsters though. If you ever get a need to take the fight to them, maybe get some real use out of your guns...”

He smiled, and the first traces of sadness entered his eyes since I’d arrived. “My war’s over, and I hope yours isn’t long either. There’s plenty of ladies liked to settle down with a distinguished man such as yourself. I could get you a decent job in my factory."

I smiled myself, although it was slight. Hadn’t much use of those muscles going on awhile now. “I am glad you’ve found your place in the world Sammy. But that life ain’t for me. I was made for the great outdoors, and the freedom to pick up and leave as it pleases me.”

He squeezed his face up “You know I hate it when you call me that.” But there was no anger in his voice. His face didn’t look haunted by the past.

We started to walk out of office, down the halls and grand stairs out the front of his estate. We said out goodbyes and that was the last time I ever saw Samuel Colt.


	5. Chapter 5

## Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun -unknown

When I arrived in Hartford it was little trouble to find Sam. He was making quite the name for his self.

He was quite excited by my arrival. He ushered me inside his modest house, and offered to take my coat. We sat down to a warm meal. As I’d spent some time on horse back, with the weather starting to turn towards winter I welcomed a place close to the fire.

I wondered about what Sam had to tell me, but he seemed far more interested in playing host than satisfying my curiosity. The food was good and the bed warm, so I didn’t push the subject.

In the morning, after we broke our fast Sam took me to his study. It was a mighty clutter. But out of the charcoal drawings and metal pieces Sam pulled out a gun.

It looked like his design. I’d seen a few of his guns out west while I worked and it seemed his handiwork, although special craftsmanship had gone into this one.

The barrel was long, and six sided, and into the metal he’d carved ‘non timebo mala’ – I will fear no evil in the old dead language that magick users seemed to favour. There was a pentagram scratched into the wood of the handle as well. I took the gun and felt the weight of it in my hand. It was heavier than it looked, although perhaps I was imagining that.

“This gun is special” he told me. He wanted me to take it with me when I left him. I already had plenty of guns, but Sam insisted. “This gun is like no other, my friend. In this you must trust me. This gun can do what no other can.” His excitement was tangible, he nearly quivered with it. “This gun can kill anything. Anything at all.”

I’m afraid to say that I did not have Sam’s faith, but it was so important to him, and of little cost to me I thanked him for his gift, and took it with me when I rode out.

***

The first time I used one of the thirteen bullets Sam had given me was almost by accident. I’d found a pack of werewolves. It was rare to find a group together. Werewolves tended to be cursed individuals, often without knowledge of their affliction. I was not expecting there to be others when I dispatched the first with a torch and silver tipped bowie knife. I’d run the unfortunate through after distracting him with a bit of flame.

That’s when the rest of the pack attacked.

It was only the thickness of the leather in my duster that prevented the teeth of my would-be killer from puncturing skin. I turned and crashed the torch into his face. The smell of burning skin and hair made my nose turn up. I sliced through this one only to beset upon by two more.

The werewolf in front of me got a lucky shot in and I flew backward, landing hard and sending both my torch and blade scattering off across the dusty floor of the barn we were in.

An unmistakable crackle told me my fire had found purchase.

I rolled hard to the right just as the tattered remains of a high heeled boot smashed into the ground where my head had just been. I scrambled back as they closed in on me.

The blade I pulled from my boot flew up and into the eye of the lady wolf. She screamed in a terrible fashion and clutched at her face, snarling. The werebeast had a good six inches on me, and I was no short man, kicked me hard in the leg and my knee wrenched something terrible. I kicked my good leg out and knocked him to the floor as the woman hurled herself at me. We landed right by the fire and I used our momentum to throw her into it. She screamed and screamed. 

The last one faced me in a crouch, I grabbed a pitchfork from one of the last piles of hay not yet aflame and stood to face him. As he charged I rammed it into his chest, twisted, and brought him down into a fire behind me, holding him as he thrashed and burned.

I had finished off the fourth, but I was drenched in sweat. It trickled into my eyes. The acrid smoke filled my lungs.

It was then that the woman wolf rose from the flames, completely engulfed in them and came at me, screeching. I had no more weapons save one. Samuel’s special gun. I pulled it from my holster half afraid it would do nothing but enrage her. A mere handful of feet from me I pulled the trigger. 

As the bullet passed through her the most curious light shone through her, barely visible due to the flames on her clothes and in her hair. But it reminded me of lightning. Like God’s wrath raging across her body.

She convulsed once and toppled. It was as if a puppet had had all it strings cut at once.

I’d never seen a regular iron bullet kill a werewolf before. It was unheard of.

The rapidly spreading fire and thick black smoke entreated me stop contemplating and run, which I did. I failed to retrieve my silver bowie knife, an event which I still hold myself in reproach for.

***

“Why’d you tell me all this?” Mashek asked “I’ve known you more than two years and these last few days you’ve talked more than in all the time before”

“I only used 6 shots, that leaves you with 7 more. Don’t waste ‘em. Only shoot what you can’t kill otherwise.” I had removed the gun from my pack and was holding it out to him.

He looked stumped at first, then startled when he came to an understanding. “Stop talking. You ain’t gonna give me the gun. You’re going need it. We’re going to be hunting for years yet” Mashek said while making shoving back motions with his hands, probably without thinking.

I let the cough that was a constant in my chest rumble out, up my throat and caught the spray with the handkerchief that was always in my hand nowadays. I moved my hand and made sure Mashek had a clear view of the blood. “Keep it safe. There ain’t no other gun like it in the world and ain’t never going to be again.

He tried to plead with me again. I could see in his eyes he wasn’t just going to let this go. With a gesture I silenced him. 

“Doctor told me it won’t be long now. And I can feel it in my bones he wasn’t lying.” 

“What the hell do doctors know?! They think bone saws and leeches cure everything.”

I shook my head. I knew and if he put any thought into it he’d know it too. “My hunting days are over, and if I keep trying people are going to get killed. Maybe one of us, maybe some young family”

“Just, just sleep on it, alright. Think about it”

I hmphed at him. “Be sure not to stay in this life too long Mashek. Settle down with some pretty little thing, and have a passel of little babies while you’re able. Don’t wait until you’re old and have no one.”

“You’re talking crazy, you aren’t old and you’re not alone. Now get to sleep” He rolled over and pulled his blanket with him, leaving me to stare at his back.

I hoped he listened to me.

***

The glare of rising sun hit Mashek in the face and woke him.

“Damn it, man, why didn’t you wake me for my turn to keep watch?” He twisted in his sleeping bag but the only thing on the other side of the fire was a twisted up blanket. It was far too small to hold a person and Mashek kicked at his blankets and scrambled over to it. Inside he found the gun, nestled safe between layers. Beside it was a small pool of blood, a bit of splatter. Everything else was gone: his partner, his partners horse, his supplies, everything. To the left was his cedar staff with the runes carved into it that they used for making the circle, leaning against a rock. The circle itself was still intact around the camp, although there were scuffles in the sand that hadn’t been there last night.

Mashek straightened and looked as far as he was able in every direction, but there was nothing but dirt and dust and sage brushes as far as he could see. There was no sign even of tracks that he might follow. He started to pack in a hurry, cramming everything he found in the first sweeping glance and shoved it into his pack. He was in such a hurry that it took 3 tries to get his blankets rolled into a tight enough roll that he could fit it on his horse. Once mounted he had his horse circle round, but even with the additional height there was still nothing to see for miles.

He was entirely alone. He didn’t even know what direction to head in. For a second Mashek felt like he might cry and he couldn’t breathe and the whole world spun out to an even greater distance and he almost fell from his horse. It was terrible and his heart thundered in his chest hard enough to shake his body. He struggled to breathe and put a hand to his chest. The tenseness began to ease, leaving him shaky and exhausted.

He concentrated on breathing until he was feeling almost normal. Mashek circled his horse one last time, but he knew it was pointless. The hunter was not going to return, either he had left of his own violation, or something had taken him. Mashek didn’t put it past the old man to pick a fight he knew he couldn’t win. He had no direction to follow, even if he was sure it was the right thing to do. 

He straightened his hat to block the glare of the sun, and started west. He’d heard told there were vampires in Colorado.

Against the glare of sunlight, with the most glorious shade of blue imaginable and soft wisps of cloud over the auburn desert and layered cliffs Mashek Daniel Ellison rode his horse onto the next adventure.

  
"Hartford may well weep over the early fall of her honoured son  
to whom she owes much of prosperity and glory and the fruits  
of whose genius and industry will remain to bless our city  
through unborn generations” – Samuel Colts eulogy  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering the answer to the Sphinx's riddle is the sun and the moon.


End file.
